Given how obvious this is, one wonders how it was so often missed and why it is yet so often missed today. One wonders why no one in church history has ever been considered a heretic for being unloving. People were anathematized and often tortured and killed for disagreeing on matters of doctrine or on the authority of the church. But no one on record has ever been so much as rebuked for not loving as Christ loved.
Yet if love is to be placed above all other considerations (Col. 3:14; 1 Peter 4:8), if nothing has any value apart from love (1 Cor. 13:1–3), and if the only thing that matters is faith working in love (Gal. 5:6), how is it that possessing Christlike love has never been considered the central test of orthodoxy? How is it that those who tortured and burned heretics were not themselves considered heretics for doing so? Was this not heresy of the worst sort? How is it that those who perpetrated such things were not only not deemed heretics but often were (and yet are) held up as “heroes of the faith”?
If there is an answer to this question, I believe it lies in the deceptive power of the sword. While God uses the sword of governments to preserve law, order, and justice, as we have seen, there is a corrupting principality and power always at work. Much like the magical ring in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, the sword has a demonic power to deceive us. When we pick it up, we come under its power. It convinces us that our use of violence is a justified means to a noble end. It intoxicates us with the unquenchable dream of redemptive violence and blinds us to our own iniquities, thereby making us feel righteous in overpowering the unrighteousness of others. Most of the slaughtering done throughout history has been done by people who sincerely believed they were promoting “the good.” Everyone thinks their wars are just, if not holy. Marxists, Nazis, the Khmer Rouge, Islamic terrorists, and Christian crusaders have this in common.
KEEPING THE KINGDOM HOLY
As we have said, kingdom disciples need to be as outspoken in repudiating the dark side of church history as non-Christian critics could ever be. We should have no more interest in defending a religious version of the kingdom of the world than we have in defending an Islamic or Buddhist or Marxist version of the kingdom of the world. But we should have a great investment in criticizing it, for the Christian version hinders our call to advance the kingdom of Calvary-like love.
We need to repudiate the violent “power over” side of church history not just for the sake of others, but for our own, for we need to continually remind ourselves how easy it is to give in to the Devil’s temptation and, thereby, desecrate the holiness of the kingdom. We need to always remember how subtle is the pull to be conformed “to the pattern of this world” (Rom. 12:2 NIV). We need to remain aware of how easy it is for us to be seduced by the demonic gods that pollute the American air we breath—the gods of wealth, self-centeredness, greed, racism, nationalism, and violent triumphalism. Without noticing it we can find ourselves morphing the radical gospel of Christ into a self-serving, Americanized, violent version of the kingdom of the world.
Jesus taught us that our life, prayer, and mission must be to keep the Father’s name (character, reputation) holy, and to work to see his kingdom come “on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:9–10). To the extent that we fail to do this, we fail to obey Christ’s commission and example. Yet as history testifies, nothing is easier for us than to give in to the Devil’s temptation to do just this. Indeed, all indications are that we American Christians have, to a large degree, already succumbed to this very temptation and have been doing so throughout our nation’s history.
The kingdom of God is not a Christian version of the kingdom of the world. It is, rather, a holy alternative to all versions of the kingdom of the world, and everything hangs on kingdom people appreciating this uniqueness and preserving this holiness. We must always remember that we are “resident aliens” in this oppressed world, soldiers of the kingdom of God stationed behind enemy lines with a unique, all consuming, holy calling on our life. We are called, individually and corporately, to look like Jesus to a rebellious, self-centered, and violent world.
CHAPTER 5
TAKING AMERICA BACK FOR GOD
But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
MATTHEW 20:25–28
Every war…with all its ordinary consequences…the murder with the justifications of its necessity and justice, the exaltation and glorification of military exploits, the worship of the flag, the patriotic sentiments…and so on, does more in one year to pervert men’s minds than thousands of robberies, murders, and arsons perpetrated during hundreds of years by individual men under the influence of passion.
LEO TOLSTOY1
Having accepted the falsehood that we must run the world, we seek to get hold of the mantle of power. Consequently, “discipleship” gets transformed: “following Jesus,” rather than denoting a walking in the way of the humble Suffering Servant, denotes being “spiritual” as we seek to wield power over our fellows…. Christians become convinced that they are pursuing the purposes of God by pursuing the purposes of the empire.
LEE CAMP2
AN IDOLATROUS CELEBRATION
Shortly after the Gulf War in 1992 I happened to visit a July Fourth worship service at a certain megachurch. At center stage in this auditorium stood a large cross next to an equally large American flag. The congregation sang some praise choruses mixed with such patriotic hymns as “God Bless America.” The climax of the service centered on a video of a well-known Christian military general giving a patriotic speech about how God has blessed America and blessed its military troops, as evidenced by the speedy and almost “casualty-free” victory “he gave us” in the Gulf War (Iraqi deaths apparently weren’t counted as “casualties” worthy of notice). Triumphant military music played in the background as he spoke.
The video closed with a scene of a silhouette of three crosses on a hill with an American flag waving in the background. Majestic, patriotic music now thundered. Suddenly, four fighter jets appeared on the horizon, flew over the crosses, and then split apart. As they roared over the camera, the words “God Bless America” appeared on the screen in front of the crosses.
The congregation responded with roaring applause, catcalls, and a standing ovation. I saw several people wiping tears from their eyes. Indeed, as I remained frozen in my seat, I grew teary-eyed as well—but for entirely different reasons. I was struck with horrified grief.
Thoughts raced through my mind: How could the cross and the sword have been so thoroughly fused without anyone seeming to notice? How could Jesus’ self-sacrificial death be linked with flying killing machines? How could Calvary be associated with bombs and missiles? How could Jesus’ people applaud tragic violence, regardless of why it happened and regardless of how they might benefit from its outcome? How could the kingdom of God be reduced to this sort of violent, nationalistic tribalism? Has the church progressed at all since the Crusades?
Indeed, I wondered how this tribalistic, militaristic, religious celebration was any different from the one I had recently witnessed on television carried out by Taliban Muslims raising their guns as they joyfully praised Allah for the victories they believed “he had given them” in Afghanistan?
Now, perhaps one could respond to my many questions by insisting that the Gulf War, unlike the war carried out by the Taliban, was a “just war.” After all, the Kuwaiti people were losing their freedom and there were reports of women being raped.
Perhaps it was; perhaps it wasn’t. People still debate this.3 But as kingdom-of-God citizens who are to always have a healthy suspicion toward every version of the kingdom of the world, especially our own, we have to at least ask the question why the loss of freedom to the Kuwaiti peop
le mattered so much to our government while the loss of freedom to millions of others around the globe does not? For example, less than two years after the Gulf War, nearly a million Rwandans were barbarically massacred in a three-month period. Though the American government and other Western governments possessed detailed information about the genocide as it was unfolding, we did nothing. A similar question could be raised, comparing our war for “Iraqi freedom” with our reluctance to get involved militarily in the Sudan, where atrocities—far worse and on a larger scale than those perpetrated by Saddam Hussein—have been carried out routinely.
Of course, the reasons why we go to war in Kuwait and Iraq but do little to help Rwanda or the Sudan are complex. Kingdom-of-the-world issues almost always are, especially when they pertain to international relations. But for kingdom-of-God citizens who are aware of the idolatrous self-centeredness of rebellious hearts and the universal influence of Satan, and who thus know better than to place undue trust in any version of the kingdom of the world, don’t these inconsistencies at least call into question the claim that we as a nation operate with purely altruistic motives? Don’t these inconsistencies suggest that where a group is located and what their resources are (like oil) are at least one factor in whether a people’s freedom is worth risking American lives for? In other words, doesn’t it suggest that, like every other version of the kingdom of the world, America looks out primarily for its own self-interest? And shouldn’t this curb our confidence that God is always on our side and shares our excitement over “winning”?4
My goal in raising these questions is not to critique America. To the contrary, this is the way all versions of the kingdom of the world operate. My critique is rather toward the American church. We expect nations to be driven by self-interest, but we shouldn’t expect kingdom people to applaud this fact, especially when the national self-interest involves taking lives! Isn’t our central calling as kingdom people to manifest the truth that this old, self-centered, tribalistic, violent way of living has been done away in Christ? Are we not to display the truth that in Christ a new humanity has been created, one in which there are no ethnic, nationalistic, gender, social, or economic distinctions (Eph. 2:13–17; Gal. 3:26–29)? Aren’t we called to “live by the Spirit” and thus put away all “works of the flesh”—including aligning ourselves with various sides of “dissensions [and] factions” (Gal. 5:16–20)?
Whether one thinks the Gulf War was just or not (or whether one thinks this question is even relevant for disciples of Jesus), how can kingdom people not grieve the loss of Iraqi lives as much as the loss of American lives? Didn’t Jesus die for Iraqis as much as for Americans? Don’t they possess the same unsurpassable worth that Americans possess? Are we not to embody and manifest Christ’s Calvary-quality love even for our nation’s worst enemies? When a congregation, gathered in the name of the crucified Nazarene, applauds the violent conquest of fighter jets flying over his cross, is this not further evidence of the diabolic power of the sword to blind us?
THE ALL-TOO-COMMON RALLY CRY
While I suspect—and hope—the fusion of patriotism with the kingdom of God I witnessed in that July Fourth video is not representative of most conservative churches, I also know that the basic sentiment it expressed is far too typical. The evangelical church in America has, to a large extent, been co-opted by an American, religious version of the kingdom of the world. We have come to trust the power of the sword more than the power of the cross. We have become intoxicated with the Constantinian, nationalistic, violent mindset of imperialistic Christendom.5
The evidence of this is all around but nowhere clearer than in the simple, oft-repeated, slogan that we Christians are going to “take America back for God.” The thinking is that America was founded as a Christian nation but has simply veered off track.6 If we can just get the power of Caesar again, however, we can take it back. If we can just get more Christians into office, pass more Christian laws, support more Christian policies, we can restore this nation to its “one nation under God” status. If we can just protect the sanctity of marriage, make it difficult, if not impossible, to live a gay lifestyle, and overturn Roe vs. Wade, we will be getting closer. If we can just get prayer (Christian prayer, of course) back into our schools along with the Ten Commandments and creationist teaching, we will be restoring our country’s Christian heritage. If we can just keep “one nation under God” in our Pledge of Allegiance, protect the rights of Christians to speak their minds, get more control of the liberal media, clean up the trash that’s coming out of the movie and record industry, while marginalizing, if not eradicating, liberal groups such as the ACLU, we will have won this nation back for Jesus Christ.
Yes, the thinking goes, if only we can get Christian people and Christian ideas to dominate the political landscape, we will have won the culture war and God will be glorified. It will be good for God and good for all Americans (indeed, for the world). For we, being the true people of God, know God’s will better than others and, thus, know better than pagans what is good for a nation. Few things can get a typical conservative Christian gathering as fired up as a message that hammers on topics such as these.
The position is exceedingly popular, but as people whose ultimate allegiance is to the kingdom of God and not to any version of the kingdom of the world, we have to ask ourselves several very sobering questions.
THE LACK OF PRECEDENT
First, since we are called to mimic Jesus in all we do as citizens of the kingdom of God, we have to ask: When did Jesus ever act or talk like this? If ever there was an instance where the kingdom of God and worldly politics could justifiably have been fused, and if ever there was an instance where one could justifiably have argued for “taking a nation back for God,” it was first-century Israel. Unlike America, Israel was, in fact, called to be a “nation under God” in a unique way. God was supposed to be her king and, moreover, most of Jesus’ Jewish contemporaries wanted to “take Israel back for God.” This is precisely why they continually tried to fit Jesus into the mold of a political messiah.
Yet Jesus consistently declined, thereby showing that God’s mode of operation in the world was no longer going to be nationalistic. As Trocme notes, “There is a complete break between the old Israel, ending at the cross, and the new Israel, the church, that grows out of the resurrection and the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost.”7 While God had intended to use Israel to reach the world (among other things), this was going to be his approach no longer. Instead, beginning with Christ, God was going to redeem the world through a “mustard-seed” kingdom comprised of people from every tribe and nation. The kingdom Jesus came to establish would be one that found absolutely no significance in nationalistic allegiances, so no longer would there be “Jew or Greek” (Gal. 3:28). If Jesus wasn’t concerned about “taking Israel back for God” by political means, why would any who align themselves with his kingdom aspire to “take America back for God” by these means?
The point I’m making can be broadened beyond Jesus’ stance toward Israel. Consider these questions: Did Jesus ever suggest by word or by example that we should aspire to acquire, let alone take over, the power of Caesar? Did Jesus spend any time and energy trying to improve, let alone dominate, the reigning government of his day? Did he ever work to pass laws against the sinners he hung out with and ministered to? Did he worry at all about ensuring that his rights and the religious rights of his followers were protected? Does any author in the New Testament remotely hint that engaging in this sort of activity has anything to do with the kingdom of God?
The answer to all these questions is, of course, no. And since Jesus is our example and the New Testament our constitution, does this not tell us that however we, as American citizens, might personally decide to weigh in on these issues politically, we should not attach the label Christian to this activity? You may or may not think it good for the country to outlaw gay marriage or keep the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, for example; but isn’t the
lack of precedent in Jesus’ ministry or the rest of the New Testament enough to demonstrate that your views on these matters, as right (or wrong) as they may be, are not part of your distinctive kingdom-of-God calling?
Of course our political views will be influenced by our Christian faith. We may even believe that our views, if they are implemented, will help facilitate the advancement of the kingdom. But we must also recognize that people who have diametrically opposing views may believe they too are advancing the kingdom, which is all well and good so long as we don’t christen our views as the Christian view. As people whose citizenship is in heaven before it is in any nation (Phil. 3:20), and whose kingdom identity is rooted in Jesus rather than in a political agenda, we must never forget that the only way we individually and collectively represent the kingdom of God is through loving, Christlike, sacrificial acts of service to others. Anything and everything else, however good and noble, lies outside the kingdom of God.
A PLAUSIBLE TEMPTATION
Some will insist that the only reason that neither Jesus nor anyone else in the first several centuries of the church tried to dominate the political system of their day was because they were simply unable to do so. After all, the earliest Christians were a small minority of people living in a nondemocratic and hostile environment. By contrast, the argument goes, American Christians are a sizable group living in a rather friendly, democratic (if not Christian) land, and we are able to at least vastly improve, if not someday dominate, our government and culture. And since to whom much is given much is required (Luke 12:48), do we not have a spiritual and moral obligation to use this opportunity to the full advantage of the kingdom of God? In this light, the argument concludes, to shirk the opportunity to rule because we are afraid of compromising our kingdom calling is irresponsible, pharisaical, and cowardly. The argument seems to make so much sense—and therein lies the temptation.
The Myth of a Christian Nation Page 9